Looking for something fun, educational, entertaining, and delicious to do in the new year? Have you ever wanted to step back in time and taste history? This is your chance. The Littleton Museum will be hosting Mastering the Art of Frontier Cooking with Miss Beecher early next year.

Enjoy the 1860s farm in a unique way! Prepare a meal using “receipts” from cookbooks published in the 1800s. With assistance from the interpreters, you will churn, roast, bake, and boil a delicious feast. Once the food is prepared, you will dine by lamplight in the cozy cabin.

I know April showers are supposed to bring May flowers, but if the showers happen to be snow showers like we’ve been getting lately then it’s much more useful if they bring brightly colored wool.

I’ve been dyeing up a storm.

There’s fluffy roving in every flavor:

Looks like cotton candy, but it’s better for you – fewer calories, more fiber!

There’s a whole spectrum of sock yarn:

And there’s a rainbow of silks for good measure:

If you’d like to see firsthand how to get these colors and more using all natural dyes (as well as all of the other aspects of fiber processing), come to the Littleton Museum’s Sheep to Shawl event this Saturday. I’ll be dyeing in the summer kitchen. Stop by and say hello!

Two weekends ago (yeah, I’m a little behind here) was the Harvest Festival at the Littleton Museum. As a bit of a change from previous years, PioneerA organized a portrayal of an 1890s county fair complete with carnival games, competitions for preserves, bread, and handwork, a pie eating contest, and a traveling medicine show.

As with most traveling medicine shows of the era, Dr. Tan was peddling a wide variety of remedies as well as beauty and culinary products.

Most medicine showmen hawked products that had little to no curative value and often contained dangerously addictive ingredients such as alcohol, opium, morphine, heroine and cocaine if not outright toxins such as strychnine, turpentine, kerosene, and arsenic. These patent medicines were popular with consumers because they were cheaper and more readily available than treatment by a doctor. They also probably weren’t that much more dangerous given that it only took three or four months of study to become a doctor and many doctors were illiterate. As late as the 1890s at least one medical school refused to give written entrance exams because they would exclude so many potential students.

Unfortunately, the cold, rainy weather meant that the good doctor didn’t have very many customers, offers of free samples notwithstanding.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am Dr. Charles E. Tan and it is my regrettable duty to inform you that you are all dying! Every man, woman, and child here is dying; from the instant you are born you begin to die and the calendar is your executioner. That, no man can hope to change. Ponder well my words, then ask yourselves the question: Is there a logical course to pursue? Is there some way you can delay, and perhaps for years, that final moment before your name is written down by a bony hand in the cold diary of death? Of course, there is, ladies and gentlemen, and that is why I am here. I hold the answer to this question right here in my hand. Yes, this unassuming brown bottle of Dr. Tan’s Celery Compound contains the solution to all of life’s tribulations, large and small, and for just $1.00 a bottle, you owe it to yourselves not to miss out on the preventative and curative powers of this miraculous tonic. Celery, you may ask, how can this humble vegetable contain the secret to a long and healthy life? Why, in the Orient, celery is used strictly as a medicinal. Even here in the west, the healing powers of this humble herb have been noted by physicians for centuries. In his monumental 1747 treatise Pharmacopoeia Universalis, Robert James revealed that through the ages, celery has been used as a diuretic, an antiscorbutic, an aphrodisiac, an antilactogen, and a cure for fevers and dropsy. And now, through the marvels of modern medicine, all of these phenomenal properties have been distilled, refined, and concentrated into their most powerful form – Dr. Tan’s Celery Compound! Yes, folks, this miracle elixir is guaranteed to cure what ails you. And for just $1.00 a bottle, there’s no reason that every man, woman, and child present can’t afford to live a long and healthy life with the help of this marvelous remedy. But wait! Do I detect some skeptics in the crowd? Scoff all you like, but I am so convinced of the efficacy of this tonic that, for today only, I am offering free samples. Step right up at the end of the show and experience the health benefits of Dr. Tan’s Celery Compound for yourself.

Flattering, no? I got to wear this lovely circus tent of a wrapper at the Denver County Fair where the Littleton Museum was invited to do a reprise of our fashion show from last year. As I’m not really in a position to wear the wedding dress or bathing costume right now, I got to model the maternity wear and tell the following story:

“My dear husband and I live far out on the prairie where there isn’t a tree to be seen for miles. As you can imagine, this makes finding fuel to heat our house in the winter a bit difficult.

Well, two summers ago, Husband started worrying about this very problem. He knew it would be important to keep the house warm for the coming winter because we had two babes and we were expecting the stork to make another delivery any time. He decided to make the seventeen mile journey to Mule Creek to bring back a load of wood. He left early in the morning, hoping to be back before dark.

Just as the wagon rolled out of sight, I realized that the stork, being an unpredictable sort of bird, had decided to make his delivery that day. We have no neighbors within several miles and no doctor to call so I knew I had to get ready to welcome the little stranger myself.

I drew a fresh bucket of water from our 60 foot well. I laid out the baby clothes, scissors, and everything else I might need. I made bread and butter sandwiches and set out milk for the two older babies and told our dog Rover to watch them.

At about noon the stork left a fine baby boy. It took me some time to get him cleaned up and dressed as I fainted several times, but when Husband arrived home at dusk we were ready to greet him. He was glad to meet his new son and very proud of the big load of wood that he had gathered. This year, I’ve advised him to start gathering wood a bit sooner.”

I didn’t have much time to look around the fair, but I’m looking forward to it next year. It was a smallish fair, but seemed to have a nice mix of all of the things you’d expect at a fair along with some extra special quirkiness because it’s Colorado.